A retired Mono Mills minister, Rev. William Major, has been sentenced to two years less a day in provincial jail on sexual assault charges involving an adult female parishioner over almost five years, beginning in 1996.

His was only one of four instances in which area residents have been facing serious criminal charges.

The Major trial was held in Toronto before Superior Court Justice Elizabeth Stewart. In finding Mr. Major guilty, the judge rejected a defence of consensual sex, at least partly because of the minister's position of trust or authority as a counsellor to the woman.

In their sentencing submissions, prosecutor Joanne Capozzi sought a five-year penitentiary term and defence lawyer Linda Lamb argued for a conditional one served in the community. Because of the significant difference between the Crown and defence positions, an appeal is considered likely.

Ms. Capozzi said in a phone interview Tuesday the sentence is under review, and it was too early to say whether there would be an appeal. Ms. Lamb said Tuesday she had yet to receive instructions from her client.

Meanwhile, another area resident has been committed for trial in Superior Court in Newmarket on charges that he fraudulently obtained two mortgages totalling $455,000 on properties in Montague Township in the Smiths Falls area.

Police allege that Norman Webb, 62, of Orangeville, obtained the funds from a Newmarket lender based on false documentation that two houses were under construction when, in fact, no construction had commenced.

The funds were being advanced as construction progressed. The complainants allege that no construction was ever undertaken. No trial date has been set.

Another Orangeville man, Gary Moulton, is currently serving an 18-month conditional sentence on a single charge of defrauding his employer. He initially faced five charges involving allegations amounting to something in the order of $500,000, but four were withdrawn last October when sentence was imposed for one charge only.

And former Orangeville resident Wayne Powney, 64, is to appear at Owen Sound next Monday, June 8, for a preliminary hearing of a murder charge stemming from the slaying of a neighbour, Dr. Henry Janssen, 57, in January 2008.

Mr. Powney, husband of retired Mono Amaranth Public School teacher Elaine Powney, was granted bail by a Superior Court judge shortly after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

The Powneys had moved from Orangeville to their present waterfront home near Lions Head when Mrs. Powney retired in 1999.

Dr. Janssen and his wife Lynn moved to the same street as the Powneys in about 2003.

He continued his medical practice at a clinic in Tobermory and had been on duty at the Lions Head hospital on the night of his death.

Reports at the time said Dr. Janssen had not returned home as scheduled on the fateful night. When the hospital called his home asking that he return, Lynn went in search and found him slumped over the steering wheel of his pickup truck on the remote Scenic Caves Road.

Mr. Powney was a former employee of Nortel and a local sports enthusiast.

Locally, Kenneth Docherty is to appear in assignment court June 15 to set a date for his Superior Court trial on a charge of firstdegree murder.